Finally home...

This afternoon completed the last part of our journey back home. We left Colorado at about 3:00 am on Thursday and arrived at my parents' house in the early evening. It was so wonderful to see Miriam, visit with my parents and grandma (who had come to visit for the day), and be out of the car! At least I got to sleep for a few hours of the 13-hour trip. I kept asking Matt if he wanted me to drive, but he managed to do the whole trip.

Something we noticed just as we were heading out of Colorado and into Nebraska was the humidity. I had always been told that it was so much more dry in the mountains, but I had never felt it quite as much as I did this week. I quite enjoyed not feeling moisture on my arms and legs 2 seconds after stepping outside. We managed to be away from the midwest during the hottest and most humid week of the summer thus far (and hopefully the worst of the whole summer... but I'm not holding my breath). So anyway, that was literally a lovely warm welcome back to the midwest. Thank you, summer.

We stayed at my parents' house Thursday and Friday night to rest up a bit and headed home this afternoon. Thankfully, our house wasn't completely destroyed by our cats and things didn't take too long to get somewhat back in order. We still have plenty of unpacking and organizing to do, but it's looking more and more like a house every day.

All in all, we had a wonderful trip and are already eagerly awaiting this conference next year!

p.s. we managed to only come away with 45 license plates. We missed Delaware, Vermont, West Virginia, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Bummer.

I'm so excited...

...to see this face tomorrow. I sure hope we make it back early enough to see her! We miss her :)

trip to Pike's Peak

We decided we couldn't visit Colorado Springs without going up to Pike's Peak, so we took the trip on Monday afternoon. It was a perfectly sunny day to go up to the top! We opted to drive up and were warned that it was a gravel road with no guard rails. However, I thought that was a joke and wasn't really expecting such a terrifying experience. All in all, despite the frightening drive... it was truly beautiful.

This was about 4 or 5 miles up the 18 mile highway. We still had far to go!

This was closer to the top... just to give a little perspective on what the roads were like. Obviously, it's not quite as scary when you can't see the thousands of feet on the other side of the cliff.

And, of course, there was snow! It was in the 40's up top... brrrrr!

We made it!

Next time, I think we'll go up on this...

Beautiful! What an amazing, creative God we have!

It's pretty clear how "America, the Beautiful" was written up there!

More Colorado...

I'm probably just going to be a day behind on all the pictures, but here are a few from yesterday (continued) at Estes Park...

This was the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. We just wanted to take a closer look at it because I thought I had seen a documentary about it a few months ago (randomly). We looked around inside a bit and also found out this was where Stephen King stayed and was inspired to write "The Shining." Frightening. I still can't watch that movie... but anyway, the hotel was pretty neat!

We had lunch at a cute little Mexican restaurant and had this as a view. It was lovely eating outside right next to a river!

And last night we went to Garden of the gods. It was pretty neat... the pictures don't do it justice.

Today we went to Focus on the Family and Pike's Peak. Also, we had the first session of the worship conference tonight. It was unbelievable... we'll have an amazing two days ahead of us! More pictures and stories to come!

44

...is the number of license plates we've seen on our trip so far (and yes, we even have Alaska and Hawaii!). We're hoping to get those last six in the next three days. I love looking for license plates!

Road trip!

Tonight I am writing 1,000 miles away from my typical location in our lovely new home. We are in Colorado Springs! We have been looking forward to this trip for so long... we knew that at the end of all of the busyness that came with moving into our new house, we'd get to go on vacation! Well, it's not technically a vacation since we are actually here for a worship conference, but that doesn't mean we haven't taken advantage of the beautiful sights around here. Here is a brief picture tour of our trip thus far:

This was yesterday morning at our hotel in Nebraska. It is the only picture we have from Nebraska seeing as there really wasn't anything more to do there. However, it was my first time in the state, so that was exciting! We decided to stay halfway in central Nebraska to break up our trip a bit. We drove about 7-8 hours on Friday and then 7 or so yesterday. It was nice to have a break halfway through.

That is the view right outside our hotel. It's pretty lovely walking out and looking at Pike's Peak!

This was at Estes Park. We drove there today (about two hours north of Colorado Springs). It was a lovely drive up through the mountains. We then saw these elk (I think?). They were roaming around on the golf course.

I went slightly off the main path to snap these photos of the elk... until I noticed one started getting up and heading toward me. We were slightly terrified and ran back to the sidewalk again.

Along our walk around Lake Estes... it kind of reminded us of Lake Tahoe. It was very beautiful!

...also along our walk. It was quite windy!

Well, I'll try and post more pictures tomorrow if we get a chance. We are planning on taking a tour of Focus on the Family and then go up to Pike's Peak. After that, we're going to have dinner with a college friend and then go to the first session of the conference. It's been a great trip so far!

rainy days

We're going on round two of a rainy (not to mention cold) weekend. However, despite the rain, we were able to get a lot accomplished AND have fun! The lawn was mowed (pre-rain), a bookshelf was put together, more boxes were unpacked, the Children's Museum was visited, errands were run, church was attended, yarn for VBS was cut and taped, books were read, songs were sung, dishes were done, and time to rest was enjoyed!